THE GREATEST GIFT - (TNN - AUTUMN & REECE)

CHAPTER TWO

Fuck.

What the hell should he say? She'd really left him nowhere to go with her bluntness.

"Er...no...nothing in particular. It flares up sometimes, when I'm stressed generally." He stuttered, looking away.

"You're feeling stressed? Why?"

Why was she doing this? Autumn never usually wanted to talk, it was confusing him. "Well, you know all this talk of taking over the nursery. I'm worried Majorie doesn't know how much I...how much she means to me. Everyone keeps asking me how I didn't realise Mia was a lesbian and I'm realising my life for the past twenty years has been even more of a joke than I thought." Perhaps those therapy sessions with Charlotte were doing some good - he hadn't even realised he wanted to say all of that out loud.

He finally met his sister's eyes after taking a deep breath and he could see her face had softened slightly. She still looked ready to fight a pack of wolves as always, but there was something ever so slightly different in her eyes.

"Reece, you know you don't have to carry everything on your shoulders, don't you?"

Autumn wasn't very good at being gentle, but she was trying her best. As much as she and her brother bickered, she loved him dearly. For so many years, she thought he'd betrayed and abandoned her, and if anyone had asked at the time she'd have told them she despised him. Truthfully, she had missed him so much it made her chest ache. Now she understood how much Reece had done to protect her, she realised that for years he'd been just as alone as she had.

Tears began to form behind Reece's big blue eyes. That was his job, wasn't it? To protect his sister and carry her burdens too - not that he'd done a very good job. Memories flashed through his mind - holding his hands over Autumn's ears as their parents screamed at each other. The nights he let her sleep in his bed when their father had been drinking. Her asking repeatedly why Mummy had left and when she was coming back. Him desperately rushing after school to get to her wrestling competitions in time, because he knew their Father would never bother to attend. Listening to her sobbing all night instead of attending her prom, knowing that she may never trust him again, all over a lie.

"It's a good job I don't have to Aut, because I've failed anyway" he finally replied.

"I don't think you've failed. You did everything you could, we were children and you should never have had to assume that role. I do wish you'd told me everything once I'd moved out, but I understand why you didn't. And I've never thanked you for keeping me safe, so I want you to know how much I appreciate it."

This was hard for Autumn, but the wine was helping. It had been many years since she and her big brother had huddled together in Reece's bed, listening to their Father ranting downstairs, drunk out of his mind. She thought back to Reece's comment about her own drinking and she knew he was right. She wasn't a violent drunk, if anything she became more subdued, but she still felt ashamed...like Father like Daughter.

Reece felt like his heart was about to finally shatter. He never thought he'd hear those words from his sister, truthfully he'd never considered the idea that he deserved them. For years, making sure she was safe was his sole reason for being. When he felt her crawl into his bed seeking comfort, he would sigh a little, so she thought he was just a tiny bit annoyed - he was her big brother after all.

He would never tell her, but those nights he honestly needed her far more than she needed him.